Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Chupacabra

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: March 31 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Background of informant:

My informant (AG)’s parents moved from Mexico to Los Angeles before her birth. She speaks Spanish to her parents in home and is surrounded by Mexican culture.

Main piece:

AG: “’Chupa’ translates to ‘suck’, and then ‘cabra’ translates to ‘goat’. Chupacabra is a kind of monster. So in Mexican culture, there’re many farmers or just lots of people who raise animals, and there will be this story like a monster came and sucks the blood of their goats. It’s kind of like our version of ‘Big Foot’, kind of.. [laugh]But again I think the purpose of it is like… maybe for kids, to not go out at night. ‘Don’t go out, cause Chupacabra will suck you to dry!’

SH: How did you know about this goat sucker? [laugh]

AG: “This one, I don’t even know, it’s just … maybe… cause I don’t remember my parents ever telling me. I remember my parents tell me about Cucuy and I remember my cousin talked to me about La Llorona, but Chupacabra I don’t really remember growing up with it, it’s just like another Mexican urban legend, that you kind of learned? But I don’t remember how I learned about it. Oh! I probably got this story in elementary school. So I went to this Latino school where 90 percent of kids are Latino and the rest are other races. In school you learned these stories from other kids. But anyway, no one takes Chupacabra that seriously. Cause Chupacabra, even its name is kind of ridiculous and funny when you’re a kid, you don’t take it that seriously. And part of Mexican culture is that we’re kind of superstitious, so we believe in ghost, but Chupacabra is just a ridiculous monster, it’s even not scary! I remember… [laugh] I think I used to watch, do you know, the animation for Jackie Chen? ”

SH: Yes!

AG: “There is one episode when they went to Mexico and Chupacabra is animated in it.”

SH: What does it look like?

AG: “Just like a wild dog, with the red eyes. When you google it, there’re many versions, but when I think of Chupacabra, it’s like a wild Hyena dog with red eyes. It’s just a big, scary dog, kind of ugly. [laugh]”

 

Context of the performance:

This is a section of the entire conversation of Mexican’s superstition.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

AG really emphasized to me the point that Mexican people are superstitious. When I asked her whether she believed in ghost or not, her standpoint is neutral. But regarding to the fact that many ghost stories and monsters are so popular and well-known in Mexican culture, she believes there’s truth behind them.

Also, I include AG’s comment on why Chupacabra is not as scary as La Llorona in the main piece, which I think is really interesting since it reflects on Mexican people’s preference on different types of legends. Comparing to monsters, which are non-human, they are more interested in legends about ghosts and other creatures in human form or related to human.

The Story of the Two Butterfly Lovers

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Beijing, China
Performance Date: Apr. 10 2017
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Background of informant:

My informant SS is an international student from Beijing, China.

The conversation was in Chinese.

 

Main piece:

SS: “Long time ago in China, I don’t remember what time exactly it was, there was a girl Yingtai. She was different from other girls when she was little. When others girls were studying embroidering, Yingtai were reading books. One day, when she grew up a little bit, she told her dad she wanted to go to school. Dad was so mad and didn’t agree. Also, the family always wanted to marry the daughter Yingtai to a wealthy family in the town. But Yingtai was so steadfast so her parents compromised.

Yingtai disguised herself as a young boy, and was on the trip to school far from home with a maid, who was also dressed up as a young man. During the trip, she met the boy Shanbo. They became really good friend and had great time together. After a while, after they had been in school for about a semester, Yingtai fell in love to Shanbo. But she could not tell him, because she could not expose her gender as a female as women is not allowed go to school.

When school ended, both Shanbo and Yingtai went back home. They lived not far to each other so they always met up. However, the wealthy family asked Yingtai’s family about the marriage and said: ‘Yingtai must be married to their son immediately.’ Yingtai was in love with Shanbo and refused to get married to another man. In order to express her denial of getting married, Yingtai dressed up in her girl’s cloth and met Shanbo. Shanbo was shocked but later fell in love with the real Yingtai. The two wanted to get married by themselves without telling anyone, however, Yingtai’s father found out and prevented Yingtai from seeing Shanbo again. Yingtai became so depressed and were seriously ill. At the day of her wedding to the wealthy family, Yingtai was so weak but she was eager to see Shanbo again. Finally, right before the wedding, Yingtai met Shanbo and she was about to die. However, ‘Bang!’ the two lovers turned into two butterflies suddenly! ”

SH: Wait, what? How?

SS: “Yingtai’s resentment was so strong before she died, so that moved the god on the sky and turned them into two butterflies that can live happily ever after. [laugh]. Oh, I need to correct myself. So it is after Yingtai died, Shanbo went to her grave and cried. His crying moved the god and suddenly, a butterfly flew out from Yingtai’s grave. Then Shanbo became a butterfly too. [laugh].”

 

Context of the performance:

After heard one classmate in ANTH 333 talking about her short paper writing the variations of the Chinese romantic legend “the Story of the Two Butterfly Lovers”, I talked to my Chinese friend SS about it. Then she told me this version that she knows of.

 

My thoughts about the piece:

I didn’t remember much about this romantic legend when I first started this conversation with SS. However, when she was telling me the story, there were so many moments I wanted to correct her, or just to point out that I heard this detail or this plot point differently.

Indeed, there are so many variations on this legend throughout history, and “the Story of the Two Butterfly Lovers” is one of the four Chinese traditional love stories. It is one of the most important intangible cultural heritage of China.

Also, I wanted to point out the ending of the story, when the two lovers turned into butterfly. Butterfly is always used as a motif that symbolized resurrection, which explains why the characters only turn into butterfly after death, or why the butterfly flew out from a grave.

High School Song Contest

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/19
Primary Language: English

This tradition was told in a setting where a group of friends were recounting old and weird high school traditions. This is one from a small private all-girl’s school in Ohio.

“So in my high school, my high school is like a school that’s all grades, like you can go there from the time you’re two years old to when you graduate, I just went when I went o high school, and in the highs school there’s this thing that each grade, so just the four, they do a thing called song contest and each grade will pick a theme and it’s super secretive and then you have to pick songs like four or five songs that fit that theme and change the lyrics to be about my high school Laurel, and you have to play your own music, so like you can’t play a stereo, you have to get your own music and your own dances, and then the alumni will vote on the best and which celebrates Laurel the most, and it’s this whole thing because my school’s been around since 1896 so there’s some very old alumni, and like, they’re like, conspiracies that like you have to pick older songs cause the old people aren’t going to know, and last year the juniors did beyonce and it was good like super good, but they didn’t win because basically because they chose too new of the artists or something like that, and there’s another conspiracy that like if the seniors don’t win it’s like a riot, and I guess that like once the seniors didn’t win and all their rich parents were like we’re defunding, we’re taking back our loans and all that, but like the seniors haven’t won a few times, like we didn’t win when we were seniors and we were fine, there was some people though who made it a big thing because they have ties to alumni and all that”

Analysis:

It’s clear to see that the reasoning behind the rumours around the song contest – it would mean more chances to win. However, it is interesting about the seniors needing to win, because it would seem that perhaps it would ENSURE that the senior class would win. However, as the informant noted, her class did not win and there were no repercussions.

Starbucks Subliminal Advertising

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angles
Performance Date: 04/21
Primary Language: English

This was told over lunch when a group of friends were discussing the new Starbucks drinks. The informant is a young 20 year old girl.

“Well, I heard once was that starbucks baristas spell your name like weirdly wrong, even if you have a very simple name and someone told me that was because they do that on purpose, because then you take a picture and then send it to people or post it online and that gives them free advertising!”
Analysis:
This is a newer version of a folk tale, that came out of the infamous actions of the Starbucks baristas. Everyone who listened to this story was pretty amazed and believed that it could be true. There is merit to the idea that such a big corporation as Starbucks would use some sort of subliminal, if not Orwellian, advertising technique to make people buy more. There is also the aspect of joining in on the fun of having your name spelt incorrectly, as if you are joining a community of people who have been wronged by corporate America.

Fort Reno, Washington D.C.

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/21/17
Primary Language: English

This story was told when the informant was asked about any landmarks or traditions surrounding her local area.

“Ok, so by my house there’s this old fort from like the civil war called fort reno, and it’s right by the middle school that i went tour and it’s still sort of  guard weirdly, and i don’t know, there’s probably a real reason for where there’s fences and guards and stuff, ut like uh, but there seems to be no real reason for there to be guards anymore, and i mean there’s not guards, but there will still be like fences and all these kind of weird structures inside, and so what all the kids say is that’s where, and it’s also the highest point in the city, but what all the kids is that there’s an underground bunker there, and that’s where the president would go if we were ever like attacked, and it’s at fort reno, and no one knows what’s in there, and it’s probably like a water treatment plant, but that’s what I believe”.
When did you learn about it?
“Um, probably like middle school, cuz we walked past it all the time on my way home.”
Analysis:
Because the informant lived in the US capital, it is obvious that much of the folklore would surround this aspect of life. It is like the local middle schoolers are attaching importance to certain landmarks to make it more official and important in their lives, to connect to the general population of politicians in D.C. It is also interesting to note the element of disaster that is worked into this tale, signalling that disaster is never far from their minds living in the capital of the US.